If you’ve grown frustrated by quick-fix fad diets that never seem to work—or by losing a lot of weight and then gaining it all back—it’s time you learned the facts. One of the most common diet mistakes is focusing on low fat diet weight loss instead of metabolic balance.

The best approach to weight loss is focusing on metabolic balance. If there’s an imbalance in your body chemistry, it makes it impossible for you to lose weight. Unlike low fat diet weight loss programs, the best diets involve identifying these imbalances—likely caused by a lifetime of exposure to environmental toxins, stress and denatured or altered foods—that can negatively impact your metabolism and make dieting such a frustrating endeavor.

Common Diet Mistakes of a Low-Fat Approach

A low fat diet weight loss approach means you miss out on the many benefits of healthy saturated fats. Most people are unaware that saturated fat can help keep your blood sugar stable, improve hormone levels and increase good HDL cholesterol. Healthy saturated fat can make you feel full and therefore can help you to lose weight. The effects of low fat diet weight loss not only include weight gain, but also detrimental effects to the nervous system and hormone levels.

Avoiding Saturated Fat

One of the most common diet mistakes is avoiding saturated fats. We’ve all heard that saturated fat is bad. This is one of the worst diets myths created by the food companies and perpetuated by the drug industries to basically help boost the sales of seed oils, margarines and vegetable oils. Why? Because they’re a cheap alternative to butter, coconut oil and palm oil, all of which have saturated fat. The truth is that saturated fat should make up about 50 percent of your caloric intake. Saturated fat consumption increases HDL (the "good" cholesterol) and has many other beneficial properties. Healthy, hormone-building, tissue-enhancing, life-giving saturated fat is essential for proper functioning, growth and repair of all the systems in your body. But does eating fat make you fat? Not if you’re choosing good sources of fat like unprocessed meats, cheese and eggs that are not laden with synthetic hormones and unnatural additives or have been fried or overcooked.

Increasing Sugar Content

With a low fat diet weight loss approach, you end up shopping for the low-fat alternatives of your favorite foods. In foods like cookies, ice cream and cakes, sugar is added to boost the flavor quality. These low-fat foods tend to have a higher glycemic index, making your blood sugar levels fluctuate, which makes losing weight extremely difficult. Be sure to the nutrition facts labels to see how many grams of sugar your foods contain.

Eating more often

There is a very distinct purpose of having fat in your diet. It helps you feel satisfied and full after you eat, and keeps you from getting hungry again quickly. Fats tend to take longer to digest than carbohydrates or proteins. The worst diets are low in fat because you find yourself grazing more often because you’re always hungry.

Failing to follow a diet that restores metabolic balance

A healthy weight loss plan that restores natural hormone balance will also restore metabolic balance. Low fat diet weight loss is one of the worst diets for achieving this. You can achieve this balance by eating three meals each day with each meal including a serving of meat, fish, poultry, eggs or cheese. Eat plenty of low-starch vegetables. Limit your intake of sugar, including fruit. Avoid juice and other sweetened beverages. Spring water should be your main drink.

Isn’t it time you avoided the most common diet mistakes? A medically supervised weight loss program that focuses on metabolic balance will help the pounds to stay off. Unlike quick-fix, low fat diet weight loss programs, you’ll achieve the desired results and lose inches in the usual problem areas while also reducing risk factors associated with obesity such as arterial pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. Plus, you’ll repair your metabolism and improve your relationship with food. Best of all, you won’t have the cravings or weight gains so often associated with the conclusion of a diet.